"Were vicious manners are described w/o being marked with proper characters of blame and disapprobation, this must be allowed to disfigure the poem and be a real deformity"

Morally reprehensible ideas constitute deformities in the work (says Hume)

Are these deformities moral and/or aesthetic (and are they aesthetic defects because they are moral defects?) (See below)

Note: To describe/portray morally evil things is not necessarily
to condone or advocate them

Art may "deal with" evil/immoral subjects and not itself be evil or immoral

E.g., A movie that depicts rape, need not be a bad movie because its subject is an evil act

Hume thinks that the immoral material must be "marked with the proper characters of blame and disapprobation" or the work is bad (morally? aesthetically?)

Might one argue that portraying evil things "neutrally" (w/o blame/disapprobation) is not the same as condoning or advocating them?

E.g., The mere fact that the horror movie "Hostel" depicts torture, does not mean it is an evil movie

It is not an evil movie because its subject matter is evil

But the mere fact that the evil doers in the movie get their just deserts (and in this sense, "are marked with proper characters of blame and disapprobation") is not sufficient to inoculate it against all moral objections

(Perhaps Hume's is a necessary but not sufficient condition for avoiding the charge of immorality)

It may be morally bad for different reasons:

Perhaps it caters to (unhealthy? sick? morally wrong?) viewers' desires to watch the infliction of suffering on others

Do folks who watch this film "enjoy" watching it? Or do they "suffer through it?"

But if taking aesthetic pleasure in tragedy is permissible, why isn't this also permissible?

Describing "vicious manners" in a story need not always to condone them, but sometimes in certain stories it is.

Many works contain morally repugnant ideas without going so far as to assert or advocate them

A story might encourage appreciator to imagine taking up a certain moral perspective (by sympathetically portraying a character who accepts the immoral perspective)

But this story might at same time encourage readers to disagree with the character; author makes it clear in the story that she rejects the moral views of her character

But if we find the perspective immoral enough, we object even to imagining taking it up.

Should we accept an invitation by an artist to imagine what it is like to enjoy molesting children?

"Beautiful" "cinematic or formal beauty" shots of Hitler's airplane flying though the clouds

Our disgust may prevent us from appreciating or even noticing film's cinematic "beauty"

Good meal baked by a Nazi? Appreciate its taste?

Is this an aesthetic defect in the work or just a hiding of aesthetic value?

Integrationism claims it is an aesthetic defect:

One of the goals of an artwork is to create a positive aesthetic response to it, and when the immorality disables this response, that is a defect in this artistic goal of the work (an aesthetic defect)

If one defines aesthetic value as the capacity to deliver aesthetic experience to those who understand the artwork, then

An artwork that is so immoral that it loses this capacity, has as aesthetic defect

Autonomism would claim that the beauty is there nonetheless and the work's moral failings merely interferes with accessing and/or enjoying the beauty, it does not degrade or eliminate it

If aesthetic and moral value can be put on same scale, autonomism might ask if its
negative moral value outweighs its positive aesthetic value (or vice versa) (Here moral and aesthetic value are still distinct)

Should we ignore immorality to get at the aesthetic value?

Should we think it unfortunate that we are psychologically unable to bracket
our moral concerns in order to appreciate the work aesthetically?

Issue is whether or not our aesthetic reactions should ever be governed,
constrained or influenced by our moral reactions

Often we don't take this attitude

We don't want to appreciate the immoral art

We don't want to profit (aesthetically) from work's moral depravity

Unwilling to look beyond moral concerns to enjoy work's beauty, as
though the beauty is itself tainted (sounds like interactionism)

"The same moral considerations that question the appropriateness of our aesthetic appreciation of the [atomic bomb] mushroom cloud, I believe, are also applicable to the possible aesthetic experience of natural disasters which cause people to suffer . . . our human-oriented moral sentiments do dictate that we not derive pleasure (including aesthetic pleasure) from other humans’ misery, even if it is caused by nature taking its course. . . .[Natural disasters’] potential aesthetic value is held in check or is overridden by our moral concern for the pain, suffering and difficulties that these phenomena cause for human beings (1998, pp. 108-09)."